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This thread seems to have much in common with the one on way-seeking mind. If every action (sitting, cooking, cleaning) is done with way-seeking mind for the benefit of all beings, what could be missing? Without that inclusion of all beings life and practice can feel quite flat. I understand how the Bodhisattva vow and even the global service days can produce feelings of unworthiness (they do in me anyway) but as Mother Teresa said ' it is not always possible to do great things but we can do small things with great love'.

When Nelson Mandela he was in prison he kept himself in physical and mental shape. When asked what kept him going he said that he knew he was either going to die in there or else his country would need him. His love for his country and its people was there in every single action.

So we sit for all beings, cook for all beings, clean for all beings and sleep for all beings, each little action motivated by great love.

Right now in my practice, it seems that there is so much to this zen thing that I couldn't explain it in a million years, and yet there is so little to it that it seems very silly when I try.

I love this, Catfish! Seems to me that when we do it, it is simple. When we try and understand it, we might as well try and catch the Higgs-Boson with our teeth!

Enkyo - thank you for your heart-felt thoughts. I am actually very moved by what you have written and 'am going to struggle to give an adequate response.

I think I hit the point you're at some months ago and also felt perturbed because I didn't feel my 'question' was fully answered from within my practice or by any specific zen teaching. I am still grappling with this - perhaps will always be grappling with this - because the 'tension' is all part and parcel of being human.

You mentioned 'boundless space' and the 'tight rubber band' of the question. This makes sense to me - to live within this juxtaposition is to be wholy human.

I think it takes time to feel remotely comfortable with such a position. It's discomforting to find that despite our best efforts the pain of acknowledging that the world is full of difficulty and tragedy doesn't ease - it may even get more intense.

But Taigu speaks of joy - and this is also true. I think with this practice the sense of joy also increases.

I now see practice as continual questioning/affirmation/questioning/re-affirmation.

We sit within 'How?' - and we do the best we can to bring our insight into the whole of life.

I bow down to all the freshness within these questions and their generous answers within this remarkable thread.

Having considered the Dogen quote:

When Dharma does NOT fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient.
When Dharma DOES fill your whole body and mind, you understand something is missing.

I feel a dumbed down version like the following still points to an interesting gateway:

When you don't see the ugliness of samsaric existence anymore, because you're either too foolish or too self satisfied, or too blissful, you've probably removed your ability to enact the Mahayana path as a Bodhisattva.

When you see the ugliness of samsaric existence for what it is, warts and all, being pulled and pushed in all directions all the time, your practise might actually benefit sentient beings, because only someone who can truly relate, can help effectively.

Stopping at the ninth ox-herding picture is missing the path completely.

When Dharma does NOT fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient.
When Dharma DOES fill your whole body and mind, you understand something is missing.

Here is some riffing... maybe off the mark, maybe on mark? I don't know, but a muscle somewhere has stopped clenching.

There is nothing left to hold back. Because there is nothing left to hold back, I have lost my eternal life and belong to the world 100%. A shimmer of instability , a reaching arc of lightening, it is my only life. Something has unmixed, and now I just live and die. In truly living and dying there is joy.

I can see What Jundo, Taigu, and Willow have said about the embracing of HOW? But perhaps a more practical answer can be considered too. So HOW do we help by just sitting?

He who saves himself saves the world- Author Unknown

When we take back our original nature, by which sitting is a method to do so, then we can bring that self which is non self out into the world. Our mere presence, our witness of original nature, our being balanced even in the face of all hell breaking around us, in my mind is very inspiring to others. What or who is that that even motivates you to have this need to have this practice BE a benefit to others? Is it the small self or the big self that is having a voice there? How did you rediscover that self? Which self is it that serves coffee in hospitals? Which presence is there in the hospital serving others?

To me sitting helps me encourage that original self to emerge, again,, and again and again. Then I am more inspired to participate in constructive ways than merely personal gain or pleasure. The small self diminishes to serve the larger self.

Perhaps it is just the conditioning that takes place. Last night I had a dream that allowed me to spontaneously respond to a situation that arose earlier this morning; creating a positive spin to the rest of the day. When one sits shikantaza, they are slowly/naturally brought closer to the universal Mind. Had it not been for my practice of zazen I may have just said (in response to the situation), "How am I supposed to act now?" Whereas, I was able to see where I fit in. Zazen eventually allows us to better harmonize with our environment. Even if that is the only effect, you've made the world a better place to be.

So, now the question is WHY! Why that dream? and Why last night?

gassho,

仁道 生開 - Jindo Shokai "Open to life in a benevolent way"
Just another itinerant monk going nowhere; try somewhere else to listen to someone who really knows.

Dogen and some other wonderful Teachers had a way to make interrogatives ... Why? How? Who? ... into AFFIRMATIONS! ... WHY! HOW! WHO! ...

A monk asked Master Kaku of Roya,
"If the essential state is pure and clear, then why do mountains, rivers and the
great earth arise?"

Kaku said,
"If the essential state is pure and clear, then why do mountains, rivers and the
great earth arise!"

Dogen often wrote using interrogatives such as "What," "How," "Why" as declarations of the "Great Matter" the "Inconceivable" or "the Ultimate Mystery". Suzuki Roshi commented this ...

Dogen-zenji found out a very good Chinese word to express this kind of truth. In Chinese-the Chinese word [is] inmo-or I don't know-know this-how they pronounce it. But inmo has two meaning. One is positive meaning: "suchness," you know. The other is the interrogative meaning: "What is it?" [Laughs.] What-what is inmo? How is inmo? You know, what is it when geese [laughs] came? Horsemaster asked Hyakujo, "What is it?" That "what," you know, what is inmo. Inmo is interrogative, and it is affirmative too.

This is very convenient word to express the reality. Everything is one side-in one sense it is suchness. On the other hand, it is not-it is something in-it is something which we cannot grasp. For an instance, you know, here is beautiful flower, you know. You think here is beautiful flower, but that beautiful flower is always changing [laughs]. You cannot grasp it, even while you are watching the changes. So you think you see it, but actually you didn't see the flower itself which is changing.

So everything is in one side something which is-which cannot be grasped, so "What?" The-on the other hand, you know, even for a while it is there in that way. And so it is-everything is suchness, and everything is ingraspable-cannot be grasped. So it is "What?" So inmo-the word inmo has two meaning, and Dogen-zenji found out this is very convenient word to express the reality.

If one sits on the zafu, one can never say Look! This is "me" because it is already changed. Like when in an airplane, car or anything moving, you can never say "here I am" because in the time it takes to say or think this, you already are somewhere else. You're here and there and nowhere at the same time. What is reality then? Are you here? Nope, Are you here? Nope etc.

Still, in relatives we are in the quiet airplane having tea (or in heavy turbulence puking in a bag and hoping it will end soon, your choice), we all are. In absolute we are all crossing the globe screaming fast at nearly Mach 1 and at an altitude of 30.000 feet. We say I'm here, in this airplane, right now because we need to say this or we cannot function.

To say sitting in the airplane chair is the whole truth and acting like that is a mistake. To say we are nowhere and acting like that is also wrong. Sitting maybe is a lot like looking out the window at times to admire the view, seeing that huge, beautiful globe and all possibilities out there (I often have done this during downtime on long flights). How fast, how high, where, all don't matter. Shut up and see how beautiful and mysterious it all is.

On long flights a passenger, kids usually but also dads with kids eyes, would sometimes come into the cockpit and always ask "So...where are we exactly?" We always had to laugh about that question. My joke ( all pilots have one) was to look bewildered on a map ( not really the place to look anyway, not the way it works lol) and say: "Aha! so that's where we are going!" A joke, because you don't tell a kid ( or most dads) exactly where we are at that moment. He or she would never get into an airplane again !

So we are both here and not here. Sutch! and What? at the same time. OH Jundo, how very wonderful! How? HOW!

Here is a sample of Dogen's Shobogenzo Inmo, riffing on Inmo. Yakusan's question reminds me a bit of Enkyo's question here. Nishijima Roshi and Chodo Cross, the translators here, went with "It" for Immo (sounds like the title of a horror flix), but I will try "How." The key phrase is something like ...

まことにそれ恁麼不恁麼總不得なるゆゑに、恁麼不得なり、不恁麼不得なりTruly, because to be like that/it/what/such or not to be like that/it/what/such is altogether impossible, to be like that/it/what/such is impossible and not to be like that/it/what/such is impossible.

Great Master Musai of Nangakuzan, on one occasion, is asked
by Yakusan, “The three vehicles and the twelve divisions of the teaching
I roughly know. [But] I have heard that in the south there is direct pointing
at the human mind, realizing the nature and becoming buddha. Frankly, I
have not clarified [how] yet. I beg you, Master, out of compassion, to teach
me [how].”

This is Yakusan’s question. Yakusan in the past had been a lecturer;
he had thoroughly understood the meaning of the three vehicles and
the twelve divisions of the teaching [i.e., Buddhist philosophy in the books].
So it seems there was no Buddha-Dharma at all that was unclear to him. ... The great
master says, “To [get How] is impossible. Not to [get How] is impossible.
To [get How] or not to [get How] is altogether impossible. What do
you make of How?” These are the words spoken by the great master for Yakusan.
Truly, because “to [get How] or not to [get How] is altogether impossible,”
“to [get How] is impossible” and “not to [get How] is impossible.”
“[How]” describes [how]. How is not [a matter of] the limited usefulness of
words and not [a matter of] the unlimited usefulness of words: we should
learn “How” in the state of impossibility, and we should inquire into “impossibility”
in the state of “How.” It is not that this concrete “How,” and “the impossible,”
are relevant only to the consideration of buddhas. To understand it is
impossible. To realize it is impossible.

I feel so small and won't push my luck and fortune any further today. This HOW I will study, think about it, search for in other texts, munch and crunch, then throw it away and go sit only to return to HOW. Sit closest to the door and start anew and fresh, all over again.

Redundancy question: In the last line you left "it" as "it". This because in the last sentences "it" refers to what has been said before, correct?